It’s just days before Christmas, and the Biden administration’s plan is to provide free at-home test kits sometime will happen sometime in January? Hopefully? Why didn’t this happen months ago to ramp up test production and availability? Scientists are baffled as to why Biden waited so long to do anything, and then when he did, the results will be too late and underwhelming. In one sense, many Americans don’t care, they’ve already moved on. In another sense, however, this is an administration that promised to “shut down the virus” but has continued to rely on unconstitutional vaccine mandates as its only method for slowing the spread.
When asked about why it took so long for the federal government to ramp up production of rapid at-home tests despite the ability to anticipate a winter surge, Biden said what took so long is that nothing took long at all, you see? Makes perfect sense:
Biden facing persistent questions after speech about testing delays.@Yamiche: What's your message to Americans who are trying to get tested now and … wondering what took so long to ramp up testing?
BIDEN: C’mon, ‘what took so long’… it didn’t take long at all. pic.twitter.com/5bTuozKkO7
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) December 21, 2021
That answer is a non-answer and dodges the premise of the question which is asking why it took until December 21, days before the biggest holiday gathering week of the year between Christmas and New Year’s, before anyone decided that maybe we should offer more at-home testing so people can screen themselves before leaving the house. It’s basic stuff here, and stuff that other countries have already been doing a long, long time.
For some reason, however, the United States has been averse to giving people cheap and easy access to at-home test kits. There has always been a sense that people are too stupid to take care of themselves, so for the good of everyone, less information seems to be better.
Other critics have pointed out that the Biden administration’s failure in this area, between testing and therapeutics, is a massive hole in this winter Covid plan:
"We know what we need to do. We haven't put in place the policy preparations. There's really no excuse for it," says @ScottGottliebMD on lack of supply for therapeutics and testing. pic.twitter.com/UGXa4kiw2n
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) December 22, 2021
According to reports, Biden still hasn’t signed his own order to ramp up at-home test kit availability, meaning the delays could last well into late January or beyond:
Days after President Biden publicly promised to provide 500 million free at-home rapid COVID-19 tests, his administration has still not signed any contracts — leading experts to deride it as nothing but a “hope.”
The president has already been accused of being caught on the hop when he announced the vague plans for a testing spree only on Tuesday, two years into the pandemic.
Now the New York Times has revealed that contracts have yet to be signed, and are unlikely to be until next week the earliest — with the eventual rollout of his promise potentially taking months after that.
“That’s not a plan — it’s a hope,” Jennifer Nuzzo, who helps track testing trends with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the paper.
There’s no excuse for this unless the White House put this entire plan together in days after watching the country buckle under new Covid panic over omicron and once again being caught flat-footed on something new facing the country.
The one saving grace for Biden’s (lack of) policy may be that further research continues to indicate the omicron strain is inherently milder than its predecessors:
New evidence that the Omicron variant may cause significantly less serious disease than earlier strains emerged, as new Covid-19 infections hit records in some parts of the U.S. on Wednesday.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland concluded that the risk of hospitalization with Omicron was two-thirds lower than with earlier variants. Separately, South African researchers said they estimate the risk of hospitalization at around 70% to 80% lower.
If this is the case, then Biden could end up being saved from his administration’s poor planning to ramp up test production before an impending winter wave.
The benefit of Biden’s plan is that at least there were no new mandates announced. Maybe by February, we’ll see Biden’s hastily produced and poorly executive Winter Covid plan start taking shape, whenever he decides to actually sign his own orders.
